Thanks to Melissa from the Hypnobabies Yahoo Group for sharing her birth story!

Zane was born Sept 18/10 at 5:44pm in his very own room in our home. I had been listening to the come out baby tracks for the last week as I did not want to be overdue (the ultrasounds were predicting a 9.5 lb baby at term)…. (my due date was Sept 19).

I had felt close to labour the whole last month as he was very low and I was getting a lot of braxton hicks/bowel cleansing/menstrual like aching (I was also taking a mixture from my naturopath for childbirth the last few weeks). I was sitting to pee and felt a small “snap”, not painful and thought it was perhaps my mucus plug…. nothing on the toilet paper, but then when i was up and moving around I realized that my water had broke. This was around 1:15pm and I started having contractions within 30 minutes.

They quickly became 3-5 min apart and so I called the midwife and she headed over (40 min drive away from me). I listened to the easy first stage track and kept moving around as I didn’t want anything to stall on me. When the midwife arrived around 3:45pm she checked me and I was soft and 6cm! At this point I was able to quite easily breathe through the contractions, trying different positions.

At about 4:45 they started getting more intense and I needed my husband nearby to work the cueing. I climbed into the tub at 5pm and within 10 minutes things became very intense….

I pushed for 20 minutes total, once he was around my pubic arch it could have gone fast but the midwives kept it slow so I would stretch easily. Once his head was out pushing his shoulders out was easy! Straight onto my chest and love at first sight. I used the EPI-NO with my first born and again with this birth and it did me well again, with no tearing or bruising at all. He weighed in at 8lbs 9oz (my first was 6lbs 11oz, so 2 lbs larger!).

Hypnobabies was so amazing for me. I suffer from an anxiety disorder and with my first birth I had an anxiety attack. Anyone who gets them knows that the biggest fear is having another one, especially when faced with the same situation. Hypnobabies kept me calm and I never felt the onset of the same anxiety during this labour. Preparing for the birth, if I started to get anxious at all it was so amazing to put on a track and relax my mind and body.

Although I had the short period of time during birthing where things were very intense and I wanted it to end, I was still not anxious. I visualized for myself a labour of under 4 hours and it was! Compared to my first delivery, where it was a 3 day ordeal and 14 hours of what was 30 minutes of this delivery, wow! It also gave my hubby better tools to help me with- straightforward and easy for him to learn and use.

We are doing great and the biggest challenge is the 2 year old sister adjustment. Be encouraged all those preparing, if you put the work in it will pay off! The next day visit with my midwife she remarked how surprised she was to find me 6cm and looking so comfortable…. just like what I had read about other women’s stories… yay for Hypnobabies!
I’m going to miss the tracks so I’m now going to go check out what they have for after baby comes!